Here we are, on Wednesday again somehow…

What have you recently finished reading?

Thanks to a certain friend, the last thing I finished was actually a book called Boring Postcards USA by Martin Parr. It’s… pretty much what it says on the tin: a book full of postcards depicting highways, motel rooms, tools, etc — some of them looking very like tourist postcards, but boring. And sometimes a little horrifying, in terms of the interior decorating. It was very entertaining, all in all, in part because I also know that some Postcrossing members would love to receive and collect things like this. I might review it for Postcrossing’s blog!

Earlier yesterday I also finished Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries, which has some excellent choices and images, but feels a bit fragmented due to being written by various different contributors.

What are you currently reading?

I have a lot of books on my currently reading ‘shelf’ (both physical and on StoryGraph), but realistically I’m only focusing on a couple. One of those is Jess Kidd’s Murder at Gulls Nest, which is going… okay. There’s something awkward about the way it’s written sometimes, like maybe someone’s taken out a thesaurus and got things a bit wrong, or used words they don’t quite understand, e.g. Nora refers to someone as “pertaining to be” a given name, implying that it’s a fake name. That’s… not what “pertaining” means.

I actually quite like the present tense for writing short pieces, but I’m also not sure how well it’s working at this length.

The only other book I’ve actually picked up in the last couple days is Leo Bruce’s Jack on the Gallows Tree, this month’s British Library Crime Classics release. I’m enjoying it more than I feared so far, since it features one of Bruce’s other detectives, not Sergeant Beef (a character I don’t enjoy).

What will you read next?

I’m not sure, but I’m hoping something will grab me soon! Realistically, I should probably focus on some of the books I’ve technically started but haven’t made progress with.